SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS ABOUT HOME LOSS PAYMENTS (Hansard, 22 February 1973)

§ Mr. Graham Page
I beg to move Amendment No. 52, in page 26, line 43, after '(1)', insert: 'Subject to subsection (7) below,'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson)
I understand it will be convenient also to discuss Amendment No. 57, in page 28. line 3, at end insert: '(7) Where the date of displacement is before the passing of this Act the period within which a claim to a home loss payment can be made shall be the period of six months beginning with the date of the passing of this Act'.

§ Mr. Page
Amendment No. 52 is consequential upon Amendment No. 57 905 which is necessary to fill a gap. It affords to those eligible to a home loss payment who are displaced before the passing of the Act a period of six months after the passing of the Act within which to make a claim. If we do not provide for this those who are displaced in this transitional period would lose out. The period of six months corresponds to the period during which those claiming must be displaced after the passing of the Act.

§ Mr. Rowlands
I had not realised the significance of the amendments. The six-month period relates to those who might have been displaced between October last year and the passing of the Act, I assume. I hope the Minister will take the most energetic measures to publicise the fact that those who have already been paid normal compensation and gone to other homes will be made aware that they can make this claim. I should like to see through regulations or by circulars a bounden duty placed on local authorities where they have caused displacement to notify people of the possibility of a payment under the Bill.

§ Mr. Graham Page
Yes, we are considering the best way to make public the information and bring it to the attention of those who may have a right before the Act comes into operation which they can exercise for a period of six months afterwards in some cases, and a year in others. We are still considering the best form of publicity for this, and I hope that it will be effective when we have thought it out well.

§ Mr. Graham Page
I beg to move Amendment No. 53, in page 27, line 18, leave out from 'if' to 'successively' in line 19 and insert: 'another person was, or other persons'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
It will be for the convenience of the House if with it we also take Amendments No. 54, in page 27, line 21, leave out from 'that' to 'ended' in line 22 and insert: 'other person or, as the case may be, each of those other persons' No. 55, in line 25, leave out subsection (4); and No. 56, in page 27, line 37, at end insert: 'and in paragraph (b) above any reference to a person's sister or brother includes a reference to any step sister or step brother'.

§ Mr. Page
This group of amendments follows an undertaking that I gave to look again at the question of inheriting an interest in a dwelling for the purpose of qualifying for a home loss payment.
We had some considerable discussion in Committee about which members of the family should benefit if they survived the person originally entitled to benefit. I came to the conclusion after reading the debate again and carefully considering it that the best thing would be to sweep it all aside and deal with the inheritor, being the person who had lived in the house for a qualifying period although they were not the owners of the house.
Take for example, the companion where the owner of the house has died and there may be no relationship. There is no reason why that person who has lived happily in that home for a qualifying period should not be entitled to a payment if the home is taken away. The combined effect of the Amendments will be to confer eligibility on a person who has occupied a dwelling or a substantial part of it as his or her only or main residence for the qualifying period, which is now five years, provided that, first, on the date of displacement he or she held a qualifying interest or right, and, secondly, that another person held a continuing qualifying interest or right and had occupied the dwelling as his only or main residence, and his occupation ended with his death, and the total period for which the deceased person held that qualifying interest or right together with the period for which the claimant held a qualifying interest or right, is five years or more.
That sounds rather a complicated formula, but it merely means that where two people live together and the one primarily entitled to benefit dies, the other, with the five-year qualifying residence, should receive a home loss payment if thereafter he or she loses the home by compulsory acquisition.

§ Mr. Mulley
The simplification of the relationships will be welcomed. I think that the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes), who took an interest in the matter in Committee, was put down before we saw the Minister's amendments, and that it is now covered. If I am right in thinking that step-sisters and step-brothers are covered by the wider form of benefit that 907 the Minister proposes, I shall not wish to move Amendment No. 56. I should like the Minister to confirm that, so that I can advise my hon. Friend when I see him. I am sure that it will be the first thing he will want to know when he returns to the House on Monday. I should like to be clear that the form of words proposed will cover not only that point but the wider question of relationships more accurately and in a better way than by trying to set out a hundred and one varieties in the clause.

§ Mr. Page
The amendment of the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) is unnecessary. I, too, compliment the hon. Gentleman on raising the point in Committee and giving us an opportunity to deal with it in the Bill.

§ Mr. Rowlands
The original subsection excluded sisters and brothers. Now we have had this redefinition of the family. The original definition was taken straight out of Schedule 6 of the 1969 Housing Act. In view of the broadening of the definition of the family for compensation, will the Minister now use the Bill to amend that Schedule so that the definition of the family for other forms of compensation may also include sisters or brothers, or all members of the family as the right hon. Gentleman has now defined it in his amendments?

§ Mr. Page
I am sure that I should be ruled out of order if I pursued that point.